I knew that my work was not second-rate; that it was of literary value. I'd like these not to be resigned, but to be rebellious. I want to see science fiction step over the old walls and head right into the next wall and start to break it down, too. Imaginative fiction trained people to be aware that there are other ways to do things and other ways to be, that there is not just one civilization and it is good and it is the way we have to be. I think it trains the imagination.
——Ursula K. Le Guin
Ishi's people were among those people who, eh you don't tell a stranger your name. My father said, "What would you like us to call you? " And Ishi means man. Male person. So we don't know Ishi's name. We'll never know his name.
——Ursula K. Le Guin
My mothers book opened many people's eyes including my own, to the appalling history of the white conquest of California. Some people are quick to see injustice and cruelty but I was slow to see it. I had to put the pieces together myself and it took a long time. It's kinda hard to admit that your people did something awful.
——Ursula K. Le Guin
Just because you've written a book about something doesn't mean you're done thinking about it. There's always rooms to keep expanding your ideas, to keep learning. My job is not to arrive at a final answer and just deliver it. I see my job as holding doors open or opening windows but who comes in and out the doors, what you see out the window? How do I know?
——Ursula K. Le Guin
When I take you to the Valley, you'll see the blue hills on the left and the blue hills on the right, the rainbow and the vineyards under the rainbow late in the rainy season, and maybe you'll say, "There it is, that's it!" But I'll say, "A little farther." We'll go on, I hope, and you'll see the roofs of the little towns and hillsides yellow with wild oats…and maybe you'll say, "Let's stop here, this is it!" But I'll say, "A little farther yet." We'll go on, and you'll hear the quail calling on the mountain by the springs of the river…and looking back you'll see the river running downward through the wild hills behind, below, and you l'll say, "Isn't that it, the Valley?" And all I'll be able to say is, "Drink this water of the spring, rest here a while, we have a long way to go and I can't go without you."
——Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin
